Human have long looked into the night sky and searched for signs, for meaning, in the lights twinkling above us.

And through the years, humankind developed tools to become better stargazers; from Galileo’s astronomical telescope to the Hubble Space Telescope launched into near-Earth Orbit nearly a quarter century ago.

And a couple years ago, the James Webb Space Telescope followed. Webb has high sensitivity instruments making it able to view celestial bodies much farther away than Hubble could see, and has been sending us photos and measurements leading to ground-breaking discoveries. These discoveries are shaping how the Baltimore-based scientists of the Webb Mission Office, and all humankind, understand of our cosmos.

Astrophysicist Dr. Macarena Garcia Marin joined Midday to talk about Webb’s recent discoveries. She is a European Space Agency Instrument Scientist and Project Scientist in the Webb Mission Office at the Space Telescope Science Institute here in Baltimore.